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I only hope I'll be around in 2123 for Henry Kissinger's 200th birthday celebration. (I'd be a mere 179 then.) Still, at least I made it to his 100th. Imagine, in fact, that when I was in my twenties and in the streets protesting the war in Vietnam (Cambodia and Laos), he was already Richard Nixon's national security adviser, a crucial figure overseeing a conflict that would prove a war crime of the first order. As Jonathan Schell once wrote for TomDispatch, while reviewing Nick Turse's now-classic book about that nightmarish conflict, Kill Anything that Moves:
"There were some two million civilians killed and some five million wounded; the United States flew 3.4 million aircraft sorties, and it expended 30 billion pounds of munitions, releasing the equivalent in explosive force of 640 Hiroshima bombs" [and] episodes of devastation, murder, massacre, rape, and torture once considered isolated atrocities were in fact the norm, adding up to a continuous stream of atrocity, unfolding, year after year, throughout that country."
And that's just to begin a description of the horrors of the war that Kissinger helped direct (and distinctly prolonged) in such a criminal fashion.
In addition to playing a key role in keeping that nightmare rolling along, as TomDispatch regular Rebecca Gordon reminds us today, he would sponsor all too many other criminal horrors globally. Yes (give the man credit!), he would also surprise the world by helping open relations with Mao Zedong's China, a (rare) act of peacefulness that, in recent years, has been slowly eradicated by Washington's increasing militarization of relations with that country. I can remember a friend calling me sometime in 1972, with the Vietnam war still grinding along nightmarishly, and telling me that Nixon was in China. I thought it was the most tasteless joke imaginable until, of course, it turned out to be true.
But as Gordon makes vividly clear today, Kissinger should otherwise be considered a distinctly infamous (rather than famous) centenarian, given the nightmarish policy decisions he made or supported from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to Pakistan and Chile. (Not surprisingly, there are a number of countries he's had to avoid visiting in his "retirement" lest he be taken into custody on war-crimes charges.)
With that 100-year record in mind, let Gordon take you on a little tour of Henry Alfred Kissinger's all-American world. Tom
Does an Old H.A.K. Require Rehabilitation?
Henry A. Kissinger, Still a War Criminal
Henry Alfred Kissinger turned 100 on May 27th of this year. Once a teenage refugee from Nazi Germany, for many decades an adviser to presidents, and an avatar of American realpolitik, he's managed to reach the century mark while still evidently retaining all his marbles. That those marbles remain hard and cold is no surprise.
A couple of months after that hundredth birthday, he traveled to China, as he had first done secretly in 1971 when he was still President Richard Nixon's national security adviser. There in contrast to the tepid reception recently given to U.S. officials like Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry Kissinger was welcomed with full honors by Chinese President Xi Jinping and other dignitaries.
'That 'lovefest,'" as Daniel Drezner of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy wrote at Politico, "served the interests of both parties." For China, it was a signal that the United States would be better off pursuing the warm-embrace policy initiated so long ago by Nixon at Kissinger's behest, rather than the cold shoulder more recent administrations have offered. For Kissinger, as Drezner put it, "the visit represents an opportunity to do what he has been trying to do ever since he left public office: maintain his relevancy and influence."
Even as a centenarian, his "relevancy" remains intact, and his influence, I'd argue, as malevolent as ever.
Rehab for Politicians
It's hard for powerful political actors to give up the stage once their performances are over. Many crave an encore even as their audience begins to gaze at newer stars. Sometimes regaining relevance and influence is only possible after a political memory wipe, in which echoes of their terrible actions and even crimes, domestic or international, fade into silence.
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